


Perspective

by rabidchild67



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Kirk/Spock Day, M/M, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 13:18:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2311004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidchild67/pseuds/rabidchild67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim receives a video of a certain Vulcan’s fight with a certain superhuman.</p><p>For Kirk/Spock Day 2014</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perspective

Jim checked the headers on the message – whoever sent it had covered their tracks, because the metadata held no trace. The vid was poorly edited together from CCTV cameras and a Starfleet feed that somehow survived the Vengeance crash. It was hard to figure out what was happening at first, but a flash of a familiar shade of blue moving swiftly along the surface streets caught his attention and then he couldn’t look away.

Jim cursed as he was forced to settle the PADD on his lap because his hands were too shaky. Damn it if the neuro damage he’d sustained was still making him as weak as a kitten, but he had to allow that being mostly dead for a while was bound to have certain side effects. 

He enlarged the image on the touch screen. It was unmistakably Spock, chasing someone Jim couldn’t quite see. The perspective changed to another camera feed and he realized the man being pursued was Khan.

There was a stab of something cold in his gut – fear? Maybe dread. So this was that day, then. Jim chastised himself for not realizing it, not having put two and two together from the date on the video feeds. Funny how your brain covers for you, he thought.

The scene changed perspective again and Khan, mysterious and calculating as he was in Jim’s mind since that last mission, looked hunted – panicked – as he charged through the lobby of an office building with Spock hot on his heels. From this angle, Jim could make out Spock’s face: as expressionless and immobile as ever, in direct contrast to his actions, as illogical as they were.

The footage flickered again and Jim saw the two men charge across streets and along sidewalks, deftly avoiding pedestrians and workerbots. Khan’s route took them away from the business district, toward the more industrialized parts of the city. Jim realized what his aim must be, and marveled, as the man did not so much as slow down as he ran headlong toward the low wall that rimmed the edges of an old commuter transport launch pad. It appeared to have been converted to a depot for automated garbage barges, and as if on cue, one of them rose up out of the depths below. Jim gasped as Khan launched himself over the parapet with superhuman strength and agility and stuck a perfect three-point landing on top of the thing. 

Spock was not far behind, but the barge was still rising, so when he flung himself at it, he had to grab hold of a docking bar on its underbelly. Jim saw him dangle precariously for a second before gaining his orientation and swinging himself up the side, where he could climb up to get to Khan. 

The scene changed to the barge’s on-board security footage as the thing set off on its pre-programmed route above the rooftops of San Francisco. Jim watched as Khan ran over to where Spock was scrambling to climb on board, kicking away the phaser Spock still miraculously held, then lifting him bodily and throwing him twenty feet. If it hadn’t been for the barge’s superstructure, Spock would have fallen; instead, he bounced off the thing and crashed to the deck. Spock only looked slightly annoyed as he pushed himself to his feet to whirl around just as Khan was on him, meeting him blow for blow.

Khan looked surprised to be so well-matched by the half-Vulcan, an advantage Spock used well as he spun his opponent around and administered a vicious neck-pinch that had Khan screaming and on his knees in seconds. Khan was not down for long, grabbing Spock’s hand and bending it back as he stood, pivoting. He pressed his advantage, taking Spock by the throat and throwing him once more, Spock landing on his back at the barge’s edge. Khan then picked the dazed man up with a hand on either side of his head, clearly intent on murdering Spock as he had done Admiral Marcus.

Jim knew the outcome, naturally, but it didn't stop him uttering a concerned, “No!” as he watched Spock’s knees begin to buckle. But Spock – and the density of Vulcan skeletal structures – were not to be bested; he reached up and pressed his fingers against Khan’s face, seeking his meld points. Jim was well-acquainted with the concept of a mind meld, the transfer of thoughts and emotions he’d received from the elder Spock had left him shaken and grief-stricken after only a few seconds; he hesitated to think what a mind such as Spock’s would be capable of transmitting to a non-telepath like Khan. 

Khan cried out and broke Spock’s grip on him, pushing him down. He spun and ran to the edge of the barge, glancing back at Spock, who rose painfully. Jim couldn’t see what Khan saw, but he paused to glance back at Spock before taking a calculated jump from the edge. Spock got up immediately, spun, and ran to the opposite end, leaping off the edge with no apparent consideration for his own safety.

Jim grabbed the edges of the PADD so tightly his knuckles whitened; the image flickered again, and he saw Spock landing on the edge of a second barge and sliding over the side, catching himself on a mooring piece and pulling himself back up and over with dogged determination. Khan, grim-faced, strode up to Spock and administered a vicious beating, kicking him down, straddling him and raining blows on his face and head, throwing him back, kicking and beating on him repeatedly, and finally going for another head-squeeze. Jim flinched, but just as it looked like the end for Spock, Uhura materialized and drew a phaser. 

Nyota shot Khan on heavy stun at point blank range, the first bolt seeming only to annoy him. He stood and turned toward her, his body absorbing bolt after bolt; he was visibly weakened, but did not go down. The next thing Jim saw, Spock attacked the man from behind, wielding some piece of the barge’s structure in his hand and beating him on the head with it. Khan spun around, dazed, and Spock pressed his advantage, taking Khan’s arm and extending it backward, pivoting and bringing the limb down over his shoulder in a vicious, bone-crunching maneuver that had Khan bellowing in pain. Then, almost without effort, Spock flipped him over, bringing Khan crashing to the deck of the barge with a hand on his throat.

“Spock!” Uhura shouted; Jim was surprised to realize that this part of the video feed had audio. 

Spock jumped on Khan, straddling him and pummeling the dazed man with both fists.

“Spock!” Uhura shouted once more, but Spock ignored her. She got down on all fours, leaning forward to appeal to him. “Spock, stop! He’s our only chance to save Kirk!” she shouted.

Spock’s head snapped up when he heard her, his eyes wild, but when he understood what she had to say, his face changed, became calm. He looked down at Khan, who gaped up at him open-mouthed; Spock grabbed a fistful of Khan’s shirt, raised him up from the deck and finally dispatched him with a vicious uppercut. 

The vid stopped there, the cut-together footage having come to its end, and Jim stared open-mouthed and panting at the tableau of his first officer’s body frozen in action, an expression on his face that Jim could only identify as hope.

“What have you there?” a familiar voice asked.

Jim looked up to find one of the subjects from the video standing in the doorway of his hospital room. “Spock.” He thumbed the standby button on the PADD and it went dark. “A vid.”

“Oh? Judging by your reaction to it, it is not one of an educational nature.”

Jim swallowed. “No, it’s not. It… Spock, it’s footage of you going after Khan.” 

Spock’s face went even more blank than usual. “Ah.” He turned as if to go and then appeared to think better of it. “It cannot have… This footage should not… Captain, I believe…” Spock, for once, was at a loss for words.

“Spock,” Jim said, staring at the other man, who would not meet his eyes. “Spock,” he repeated, his tone insistent, commanding. When their eyes finally met, Spock’s were filled with such doubt and pain that it hurt Jim to see it, but he soon regained his control and regarded Jim placidly. 

“Yes, Captain?”

“You were gonna kill him.”

“I…” Spock looked away, thinking. “Affirmative.”

“Why?”

“He was guilty of many grievous crimes.”

“But you yourself said there was no Federation regulation that condemned a man to die without a trial.”

“That is correct.”

“How do you reconcile that?”

“I find myself unable to.”

They stared at each other for long moments, Jim seeing a host of emotions flicker across the face of his first officer: regret, grief, anguish, and finally resignation. Jim nodded. “I saw in the footage that you… touched Khan’s face. You melded with him?”

“A light meld only, its intent to convey surface thoughts and emotions only.”

“May I ask what you chose to convey to Khan?”

“You may. I… attempted to impress upon him the magnitude of the loss he was responsible for.”

“’The loss’? You mean…?”

“My own loss, Captain.”

“Your grief? It made him cry out in pain, Spock.”

Spock nodded and looked down at the floor. “As it did to me at the moment of your death, Captain.”

“You would have killed him for me?”

“I did not.”

“But you would have.”

“Affirmative.”

“I don’t know what to do with that knowledge, Spock.”

“Nor do I, Captain.”

“Spock, do you have feelings for me?”

“I do not have an answer.”

“You mean you won’t answer.”

“That is not what I said. ‘Feelings’ is an imprecise term for my emotional state in regards to you, sir.”

“Them maybe you could find more precise ones.”

Spock appeared to think it over. “Regard. Respect. Affection.”

Jim nodded, disappointed by his word choice. But something in Spock’s manner emboldened him, led him make a leap of faith he would ordinarily not have, had he not seen what he had just seen on that vid, had he never known the exact lengths Spock had gone in his pursuit of Khan. “What about… love?”

Spock paused. “Another imprecise term, although perhaps the better descriptor is ‘inadequate’, at least in regard to the depths of my emotion toward you.” 

Jim felt warm all over suddenly, and a kind of lightness in his chest that he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. “I see. Thank you, Spock.”

“You are welcome, Captain.” He turned to leave.

“Hey, Spock?” Jim called out, and Spock turned around, an expectant look on his face. “Since we’re in love with each other and everything, you should probably call me Jim from now on.”

Spock looked thoughtful for a moment. “That would be acceptable. Jim.” 

He left and Jim watched the space he’d just occupied in the doorway, a slow and satisfied smile growing on his face as he took the PADD up again and went to replay the vid. 

Out in the corridor, Chekov and Sulu watched Spock leave and shared a private smile.

\----

Thank you for your time. 

You can also find me on Tumblr @rabidchild67, I hope you'll consider following me there.


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